John said: “What was meant to be a good development for the family has turned out to be anything but.

“I am angry at the amount of money that has been squandered – at least £300,000 between 2008 and 2012. The amount of money which went through the farm was unbelievable.

“My dad got a cheque for £40,000 from a large load which was taken to the infill. A big part of that was used for a massive wedding in the Crutherland House Hotel to his ex-wife and then a honeymoon in the Maldives.

“My dad also followed the Grand Prix to places like Monaco and further afield and bought fancy new cars.

“There were also 40 horses on the farm at one point and they were clearly living a life they couldn’t afford, which makes me so angry.

“Also, every time the value of property went up, the farmhouse was remortgaged to the tune of £650,000 and has been repossessed. The farm was bought for £250,000 in 2000 and I was told I would be lucky to get £150,000 now.”

John Thompson says he will have to walk away from the family business with nothing (Image: Garry F McHarg)

He went on: “At the end of the day your dad will always be your dad and you love him, no matter what, but there was no excuse. He was greedy and put money in his pocket to the detriment of the environment and area. I knew there were some materials which shouldn’t have been dumped on site but I was unaware of the extent of it – or how long it went on for.

“It continued after my dad was fined £10,000 by the council. The fine was never paid either as my dad put the business into liquidation and formed a new one.”

Thompson snr was fined £10,000 by South Lanarkshire Council in 2012 for illegally dumping waste.

In October, the council slapped a completion notice on John, giving him 12 months to complete the development at Meadowhead.

But he says he was horrified to discover the extent to which waste was dumped illegally at the farm – where he has posted a sign warning of the potential hazards.

And he has now vowed to walk away from the family business for the sake of his fragile health and his young family.

He said: “Since I took over the operation, everything has been above board and no material has come on site which wasn’t properly licensed.

“I foolishly thought I could turn a bad situation into a good one and get the equestrian centre up and running but it’s beyond me and all I can do now is walk away with nothing.

“The 14-acre site which my dad was fined for has a colossal amount of waste in it – at least 300,000 tonnes – and there is a smaller plot of five or six acres with fly-tipping waste on it.

“I won’t walk away and leave it as it is. I will flatten the ground, but for my family’s sake I can’t do it any more.

“It would cost two or three times more than the farm is worth to clean it up. For me to carry on with this would be financial suicide.”

John added: “No matter what my dad or anyone else did, no one deserves what happened to him. It’s not the Wild West. You shouldn’t be running about shooting people.

“But I can understand why Robert did what he did – he was about to lose everything.”

A police car sits at the side of the cordoned off Auldhouse Arms after a shooting at nearby Meadowhead Farm. (Image: Wattie Cheung)

John also says he is haunted by the possibility that his father’s actions will rebound on him. He said: “All I keep thinking is what if I sell on the farm knowing what is there and someone unwittingly digs up the waste. Will they come looking for me like Robert did my dad? And what if they chap on my door? I can’t put my family through that.

“Having to go up to the farm every day after what happened up there has been absolute hell and I need to walk away for my family’s sake if nothing else.

“I am still having weekly counselling sessions and suffer flashbacks from the shooting. I have been told by my doctor I will end up in hospital if I go on like this.”

John insists SEPA – the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency – have not discovered any unlicensed material in the areas of the development he has been responsible for since his father’s death and says he wants to work alongside them.

A spokesman for SEPA said: “Since January 2015, we have received complaints from members of the public which allege large quantities of unauthorised waste are being deposited at this site and we are currently undertaking inquiries."